HMS Surprise. Patrick O’Brian

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СКАЧАТЬ cabin to receive his guests, and he felt it with a certain twinge of emotion, difficult to define: it was not envy, since he was wealthier than any group of them put together, wealthier in posse, he added, with a habitual crossing of his fingers. Yet it was envy, too: they had a ship, they were part of a tightly-knit community. They had a ship and he had not. Yet not exactly envy, not as who should say envy … fine definitions fled down the wind, as the glass turned, the Marine went forward to strike four bells, and the midshipman of the watch heaved the log. He hurried into the great cabin, glanced at the long table laid athwartships, his silver plates blazing in the sun and sending up more suns to join the reflected ripple of the sea on the deckhead (how long would the solid metal withstand that degree of polishing?), glasses, plates, bowls, all fast and trim in their fiddles, the steward and his mates standing there by the decanters, looking wooden. ‘All a-tanto, Killick?’ he said.

      ‘Stock and fluke, sir,’ said his steward, looking beyond him and signalling with an elegant jerk of his chin.

      ‘You are very welcome, gentlemen,’ said Jack, turning in the direction of the chin. ‘Mr Simmons, please to take the end of the table; Mr Carew, if you will sit – easy, easy.’ The chaplain, caught off his balance by a lee-lurch, shot into his seat with such force as almost to drive it through the deck. ‘Lord Garron here; Mr Fielding and Mr Dashwood, pray be so good,’ – waving to their places. ‘Now even before we begin,’ he went on, as the soup made its perilous way across the cabin, ‘I apologise for this dinner. With the best will in the world – allow me, sir,’ – extracting the parson’s wig from the tureen and helping him to a ladle – ‘Killick, a nightcap for Mr Carew, swab this, and pass the word for the midshipman of the watch. Oh, Mr Butler, my compliments to Mr Norrey, and I believe we may brail up the spanker during dinner. With the best will in the world, I say, it can be but a Barmecide feast.’ That was pretty good, and he looked modestly down but it occurred to him that the Barmecides were not remarkable for serving fresh meat to their guests, and there, swimming in the chaplain’s bowl, was the unmistakable form of a bargeman, the larger of the reptiles that crawled from old biscuit, the smooth one with the black head and the oddly cold taste – the soup, of course, had been thickened with biscuit-crumbs to counteract the roll. The chaplain had not been long at sea; he might not know that there was no harm in the bargeman, nothing of the common weevil’s bitterness; and it might put him off his food. ‘Killick, another plate for Mr Carew: there is a hair in his soup. Barmecide … But I particularly wished to invite you, since this is probably the last time I shall have the honour. We are bound for Gibraltar, by way of Minorca; and at Gibraltar Captain Hamond will return to the ship.’ Exclamations of surprise, pleasure, civilly mixed with regret. ‘And since my orders require me to harry the enemy installations along the coast, as well as his shipping, of course, I do not suppose we shall have much leisure for dining once we have raised Cape Gooseberry. How I hope we shall find something worthy of the Lively! I should be sorry to hand her over without at least a small sprig of laurel on her bows, or whatever is the proper place for laurels.’

      ‘Does laurel grow along this coast, sir?’ asked the chaplain. ‘Wild laurel? I had always imagined it to be Greek. I do not know the Mediterranean, however, apart from books; and as far as I recall the ancients do not notice the coast of Languedoc.’

      ‘Why, it has been gathered there, sir, I believe,’ said Jack. ‘And it is said to go uncommon well with fish. A leaf or two gives a haut relievo, but more is deadly poison, I am told.’

      General considerations upon fish, a wholesome meat, though disliked by fishermen; Dover soles commended; porpoises, frogs, puffins rated as fish for religious purposes by Papists; swans, whales and sturgeon, fish royal; an anecdote of a bad oyster eaten by Mr Simmons at the Lord Mayor’s banquet.

      ‘Now this fish,’ said Jack, as a tunny replaced the soup-tureen, ‘is the only dish I can heartily recommend: he was caught over the side by that Chinaman in your division, Mr Fielding. The short one. Not Low Bum, nor High Bum, nor Jelly-belly.’

      ‘John Satisfaction, sir?’

      ‘That’s the man. A most ingenious, cheerful fellow, and handy; he spun a long yarn with hairs from his messmates’ pigtails and baited the hook with a scrap of pork-rind shaped like a fish, and so caught him. What is more, we have a decent bottle of wine to go with him. Not that I claim any credit for the wine, mark you; it was Dr Maturin that had the choosing of it – he understands these things – grows wine himself. By the bye, we shall touch at Minorca to pick him up.’

      They should be delighted to see him again – hoped he was very well – looked forward much to the meeting. ‘Minorca, sir?’ cried the chaplain, however, having mulled over it. ‘But did we not give Minorca back to the Spaniards? Is it not Spanish now?’

      ‘Why, yes, so it is,’ said Jack. ‘I dare say he has a pass to travel: he has estates in those parts.’

      ‘The Spaniards are far more civilised than the French in this war, as far as travel is concerned,’ observed Lord Garron. ‘A friend of mine, a Catholic, had leave to go from Santander to St James of Compostella because of a vow – no trouble at all – travelled as a private gentleman, no escort, nothing. And even the French are not so bad when it comes to men of learning. I saw in The Times the Weasel brought that a scientific cove from Birmingham had gone over to Paris to receive a prize from their Institute. It is your scientific chaps who are the ones for travelling, war or no war; and I believe, sir, that Dr Maturin is a genuine smasher in the scientific line?’

      ‘Oh indeed he is,’ cried Jack. ‘A sort of Admiral Crichton – whip your leg off in a moment, tell you the Latin name of anything that moves,’ – his eye caught a brisk yellow weevil hurrying across the table-cloth – ‘speaks languages like a walking Tower of Babel, all except ours. Dear Lord,’ he said, laughing heartily, ‘to this day I don’t believe he knows the odds between port and starboard. Suppose we drink his health?’

      ‘With all my heart, sir,’ cried the first lieutenant, with a conscious look at his shipmates, all of whom shared it more or less, as Jack had noticed at their first appearance in the cabin. ‘But if you will allow me – The Times, sir, that Garron refers to, had a far, far more interesting announcement – a piece of news that filled the gun-room, which has the liveliest recollection of Miss Williams, with unbounded enthusiasm. Sir, may I offer you our heartiest congratulations and wish you joy from all of us, and suggest that there is one toast that should take precedence even over Dr Maturin?’

      Lively, at sea Friday, 18th

      Sweetheart,

      We drank your health with three times three on Monday; for the fleet tender brought us orders while we were polishing Cape Sicié, together with the post and your three dear letters, which quite made up for our being diddled out of our cruise. And unknown to me it also brought a copy of The Times with our announcement in it; which I had not yet seen, even.

      I had invited most of the gun-room to dinner, and that good fellow Simmons brought it out, desiring to drink your health and happiness and saying the handsomest things about you – they had the liveliest recollection of Miss Williams in the Channel, all too short, were your most devoted, etc., very well put. I went as red as a new-painted tompion and hung my head like a maiden, and upon my honour I was near-hand blubbering like one, I so longed for you to be by me in this cabin again – it brought it back so clear. And he went on to say he was authorised by the gun-room to ask, should you prefer a tea-pot or a coffee-pot, with a suitable inscription? Drinking your health recovered me, and I said I thought a coffee-pot, begging the inscription might say that the Lively preserved the liveliest memory. That was pretty well received, and even the parson (a dull dog) laughed hearty in time, when the bonne mot was explained to him.

      Then that night, standing in with a fine topgallantsail СКАЧАТЬ